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08/01/2010

In this short clip, primary languages teacher Lisa Stevens talks about how she uses Twitter in the classroom to enable her pupils to ask real questions from her network of like-minded colleagues about the themes they are learning. By crowdsourcing her network in this way, Lisa explains how she is able to gain authentic feedback in real time and make her lessons more engaging and dynamic as a result.

For example, she asked her PLN to answer the question "What musical instruments do you play?" and was delighted with the various responses in either English or Spanish which she felt raised the cultural and grammatical awareness of her pupils.

Lisa then goes on to say how Twitter has helped her develop professionally as a teacher and mirrors the view of many colleagues who have also made the effort to nurture their own personal learning network using the free micro-blogging tool.

To see another example of Lisa using Twitter in the classroom, have a look at her recent appearance on Teachers TV where she starred in the wonderful Online communities programme first broadcast in September 2009.

Of course, Twitter is not for everyone and it may be blocked in your school anyway, but Lisa has certainly shown here how it can be used to break down the walls of the classroom and offer pupils and professionals alike huge opportunities to be enthused and make learning more connected and collaborative. You go girl!

07/10/2009

One of the great things about streaming a session live or publishing a video clip of a talk is it can reach a much wider audience than those watching at the time. This is certainly the case of the TeachMeet phenomenon which has established a tradition of spreading good practice and attracting colleagues from around the world interested in developing their own continuing professional development from the comfort of their own home. In the Flashmeeting of the recent TeachMeet SUKE for example the numbers attending virtually matched more or less those who were there in person.

Thanks to the efforts of Leon Cych and Anthony Evanspresentations were captured live and archived on Blip.tv helping to spread the word further. I was delighted that my talk seemed to wow everyone on the night and that I was able how PowerPoint can be used in effective and engaging ways.

In addition to making an object follow the movement of the cursor when clicked, the macro can now also zoom in and out, rotate clockwise by 45 degrees at a time, add text and calculate mathematical formulas!

Following Hans' screencast explaining how to embed the macro into any presentation, I have updated The Magic PowerPoint created by Jo Rhys-Jones acting Primary Languages Advisor for Hampshire to include the new instructions needed and to explain how to run the slideshow in PowerPoint 2007 which differs quite radically from previous versions.

To use the draganddrop macro you must first make sure you have changed the security settings so that macros are enabled. Here's what you do:

To enable macros

In PowerPoint 2002, click Tools and Macro. In the menu which appearsclick Security and select the radio button next to Medium. Click OK and close PowerPoint.

In PowerPoint 2003, click Tools and Options. In the Options window that appears, click the Security Tab and the Macro Security button. Click the Security tab and select the radio button next to Medium. Click OK and close PowerPoint.

Now when you open a presentation which contains the draganddrop macro, click the Enable Macros button if it appears.

In PowerPoint 2007, click the Office Button and then PowerPoint Options

Click Trust Center and Trust Center Settings

Click Macro Settings and select the radio button next to Disable all macros with notification. Click OK twice.

Click Options on the Security Warning message that appears

In the Security Options window which appears, select the radio button next to Enable this content. Click OK.

To apply the draganddrop macro

In PowerPoint 2002/03, right click the object you want to drag and drop, select Action Settings and then Run macro: DragandDrop and click OK.

In PowerPoint 2007, select the object you want to drag and drop, click the Insert menu and the Action icon. In the Action Settings dialogue box that appears, select Run macro: DragandDrop and click OK.

Once you've applied the macro, you can delete the other slides and run the slideshow by pressing F5 or clicking Slide Show and From Beginning. Hover over the object and you will see the cursor changes to a hand as if it were a hyperlink. To now move the text or image, click it and then release the mouse. Move the cursor around the slide and you will see the selected object follow! To stop it moving, click it again and you're done.

In the improved version you can also use the following key combinations to enable these different features:

To avoid your presentation from accidentally ending with a mouse click or moving on to the next slide, click on Slide Show/Slide Transition and remove the tick from the box next to Advance On Mouse Click for PowerPoint 2002/3. For PowerPoint 2007, click the Animations menu and remove the tick from the box next to Advance On Mouse Click. Save your presentation.

To move to the next slide, add an Action Button. In PowerPoint 2002/3, click Slide Show/Action Buttons and select the Action Button which points right. In PowerPoint 2007, click the Insert menu and Shapes, then scroll down to the Action Buttons andselect the Action Button which points right. Then in both cases hold down the left click and drag the Action Button shape as large as need be. Let go of the left click. A dialogue box should come up. In the dropdown menu Hyperlink to, select Next slide. Run the slideshow and click the Action Button to go to the next slide.

To ensure objects return to their original position, mark your presentation as read only and save it as a PPS file.

28/05/2009

Free online voting system, Poll Everywhere has introduced Twitter and PowerPoint functionality to its service making it now possible for users to tweet their responses anonymously in real time and have them displayed on a webpage, in a slideshow or as an embedded widget.

At first glance, this new feature creates a number of exciting possibilities for teachers and trainers. For example in the classroom, Poll Everywhere could

be used to model dialogues or short texts put together by the class with a class set of netbooks, in a computer suite or by using mobile phones

Likewise, in a conference session, the voting tool could

encourage debate by offering a visual backchannel where the audience can text or tweet their thoughts to the presenter. This could include answers from around the world if the session was being streamed live

reinforce connected thinking and intercultural understanding of universal issues we all face in education

If Twitter is blocked in your school, pupils can vote via the web without the need to register or post their names online. The number of polls you can make is always unlimited even in the free version and you can generate an RSS feed of the results too if you want. Do note though, you need to have PowerPoint 2007 to display votes. I can see the multiple choice poll being useful for topics such as brothers and sisters, hair and eyes, sports, pets etc.

16/05/2009

ZoomIt is a PC tool for zooming in on any area of your desktop using your mouse or arrow keys. Particularly useful for interactive whiteboard users, screencasters and PowerPoint fans, the free app allows you to annotate and type on screen as well as save images of anything you produce.

To zoom in and out press CTRL + 1 and use the mouse wheel or arrow keys to increase the zoom. If you then want to annotate, click anywhere on the screen and move the mouse accordingly. You can remove annotations one at a time using CTRL + Z or erase everything by pressing the E key.

The pen colour can be changed by typing r for red, g for green, b for blue, y for yellow and p for pink and the width by holding down CTRL and using the arrow keys or mouse wheel.

08/01/2009

A common problem amongst language teachers using SMART Notebook software with their interactive whiteboard is not knowing how to add accented letters. Well this clip provides one solution by showing how you can change the language of the keyboard settings in Windows to combat the issue.

Lesley Welsh the only speaker to have appeared at all three IOW conferences to date was in excellent form again for her two sessions Funky Flipcharts and Interesting Interactivity and PowerPoint for Primary Pupils at this year's event.

As you will hear, Lesley's manner is down to earth, encouraging and honest. Her classroom anecdotes are often hilarious particularly when she impersonates her former pupils and their idiosyncracies when learning French in Hartlepool.

Included here are three recordings, two from Lesley's 2008 appearance, plus her 2007 Funky version too and to be honest I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions when editing everything together.

For a more detailed description of Lesley's ideas on getting the most out of your interactive whiteboard, have a look at Amanda Salt's and Isabelle Jones' posts which do the business with aplomb.

Using Alec Couros' excellent diagram of what a 'networked teacher' can look like in the 21st century as a guide, I drew on materials already created by different language teachers around the country and proposed how others could follow their example. Whether this happens is another question all together, but I do hope that those who attended do at least now start to take advantage of the power of RSS and use the delivery system to connect with like-minded colleagues around the world.

It was great that none of the sessions on using technology at the conference overlapped too much and in many ways they complimented each other dealing with topics such as using virtual learning environments, interactive self-authoring exercises and moblogging. I was glad to see that both Chris Fuller and Frankie Villatorro were extolling the virtues of the Flip video camera as a quick and easy way of shooting and uploading video to the web. I can see this tool having a similar impact as it has already had in the states.

Another highlight was seeing how Andrew Balaam is using Moodle to record the individual scores that his pupils are achieving when completing Hot Potatoes exercises both in and out of school. This was impressive particularly as both tools are free to use for educational purposes.

Hope you find my presentation as useful and get in touch if you need any help. Don't forget "Be bold!"

30/09/2008

Gemma a primary school English teacher in Spain has created this wonderful digital big book using the free tool Issuu. It showcases pupils' descriptions of different monsters and could easily be adapted to practise other languages.

I can see this working a treat on an interactive whiteboard. Just click on the page to zoom in.